Dark Butterfly
by SwampGirl
Summary: Set right before Extreme Risk, Tom and B'Elanna thoughts as she descends into deep depression


AUTHOR: [Chata Saladbar][1]  
SERIES: VOY  
PART: 1/1  
RATING: [PG]  
CODES: P/T 

SUMMARY: Set right before Extreme Risk. Tom and B'Elanna's  
separate thoughts as she descends into depression.  
DISCLAIMER: Paramount owns all, including Star Trek and these  
characters. I own nothing except for the story dribble. No  
infringement is intended.  
DISTRIBUTION: This story may be archived in the ASC archives.  
Permission to be archived elsewhere must be obtained from the  
author. Please do not copy, distribute or reprint this story  
without the author's ([saladbar8@hotmail.com][1]) permission (which  
I most likely will give, but please ask).

**DARK BUTTERFLY**

B'Elanna:

To everyone on the outside my life finally appears in  
balance. My career is challenging. I've worked hard to  
overcome my chaotic past. I have learned to control my  
temper. I have love from the most handsome man on the ship.  
I am respected.

But it is all a lie. I've just learned to look into their  
eyes and lie. Under the discernible contentedness hides  
a heart that no longer beats, lungs that have forgotten how  
to breathe.

I often wonder if I am still alive.

I have tried to go about my duties and relationships and not  
acknowledge my deception. But once, just once, I stopped to  
study my true self. I curiously looked at my blurred reflection  
in the mirror. It was hard for me recognize the image: my  
face was bloodless, my expression was ashen and corpse-like.  
I looked like a frightened statue. I tried to touch it, touch me,  
to see if I was real. I felt nothing but cold air.

That reflection is a fatal disease and I haven't looked at  
it since. I avoid it now as I prepare to go to work. But its  
lifeless manifestation of me always follows me like a ghost.

Do not think of the face in the mirror. I will not go morbid.  
I will work, attend briefings, be brilliant. I chant this  
quietly while I rock and cradle myself as my mother never did.

  
_Tom:_

_She is a harrowed soul within a beautiful body. Her eyes,  
B'Elanna's eyes, contain an intensity so pure that you can  
never look at them long without being lost to her. Though  
sometimes, some nights, she had a way lowering those eyes, a  
gesture that looked both vulnerable and controlled. There was  
something else too, a deep wordless sorrow. I was a Fool, an  
Idiot! I saw that she was drowning, but I could not look at  
her or talk to her in true and relevant terms. I thought my  
kisses would anchor her to me, that my desire would cradle her  
in safety._

_But that one day my mind was jagged with frustration and the  
sudden impatient desire in me wanted all the problems solved  
at once. That day I looked into her brown eyes and she recoiled  
from me one too many times. I know now she had been warning me  
of something--she had looked up from her work to warn me that  
something was wrong. Her mouth was slightly open, a perfect  
crimson "O", as if she just drawn a breath in order to utter  
something to me. She stood so haggard but so marvelously  
elegant. I hated loving her. I told her so. My heart lurched so   
violently that I could barely walk as I tried to go outside  
beyond the range of her. But once outside her rejection filled  
the corridors and regret lumped heavy in my throat like a boulder._

_It seems like forever since I've heard your laughter, forever  
since you have called out my name._

  
B'Elanna:

That one day his oceanic eyes were puzzled as he tried to place  
me. It was though I were a stranger to him. His light eyes dark  
with disappointment, so wretched in their pleading. He pressed his  
lips tightly together, trying to make them not tremble, or trying  
not to curse me. I wanted to tell him how beautiful he was but my  
soul sank under the weight of the terrible sorrow I bring to him.  
My actions had already stained us. Something kept me still,  
immovable, as lifeless as stone. Then automatic doors opened  
their jaws and he was gone. The walls were cold again. I made  
no sigh of sound, and only felt the familiarity of my solitude.

I am used to fighting with him, if that implies screaming and  
yelling with erratic gestures and throwing things. That is so  
much easier than talking, really talking, and telling him the  
truth. This was not a fight. I had no energy left to fight.

I have already let Tom enter where I am deepest and most unknown.  
His reassuring presence exuded an amazing power of desire over me.  
It was enough, for a while. His lifting smile and soft angelic  
blue eyes. That off-centered quirky grin. Even if he didn't touch  
me I could feel his warmth on my body, a sensation that I thought  
could heal me. But our coupling had made me temporarily into  
which I know I am not. There are many days I don't need to be  
reminded of that knowledge. Realization makes the heat from when  
are bodies are two, then one, leave me. The vestiges of what  
appeared so alive and indestructible were squashed by the presence  
of my ghost.

The truth? The truth that I am not Human, and I am not Klingon.  
In nature I shouldn't exist thus my existence has little meaning.  
I can see no reason for my life, no clarity, purpose, or path.  
I only know a blind journey guided by chance and detours into  
crooked confusing mazes caused by events beyond my control. I  
plod through this stupid little existence making no one happy,  
first my dad and my mother, and now Tom, the Captain, my dead  
comrades. In another life, not unlike this one, we would all  
be sworn enemies. The captain, with her prim sense of order and  
Tom with his athletic good looks and family connections no doubt  
would have snubbed me in school had we been together. Life, with  
all its surprises and perversities threw us all in front of each  
other.

Except for Chakotay, we would have been friends in any lifetime.  
I have loved him for years in not always so wholesome ways.  
He has loved, protected and championed me as if I were his kin.  
I often imagined myself in his dark arms, but now I just want  
his voice, his reason, his familiarity. But why doesn't he see  
that I am insane? I have always imagined myself insane, but I  
thought I would go out with shrieks and screams. Perhaps that  
is what he is looking for. Instead I am leaving with numbness and   
flat hopelessness.

Any feeling, anything, even the emotion of utter sorrow I would  
welcome.

_Tom:_

_I see her now walking past me now. I try not to look at the  
glide of her hips beneath the black and gold fabric.  
She walks like a warrior, without a sound, and holds her  
body in grace and strength. I glance at her slim, regal  
form with a desperate longing, trying to resist the urge  
to pull her close and place a kiss on the soft corrugation of  
her forehead. It would be so easy to forget all restraint  
and hurl my love at her, entire body and heart. If only  
that illusive dark butterfly would let me. How impenetrable  
she can be, how infuriatingly well behaved she has become._

_As my penance for not being able to save her I tell myself  
will not once think of her as I work. But I can not stop  
thinking about those eyes dark as a warm night, full of  
unpredictable intensity, the cup in my palm from the curve  
of her soft breast. I can not stop thinking of the insane  
tenderness of her sweet honey flesh, a glowing saffron in  
my bed and how her lean tawny legs crossed on my sheets.  
I can still breathe the faint smell of her wild honeysuckle  
hair floating around me like incense._

_B'Elanna, the vehemence of my love and desire to keep you  
with me are far more powerful than my pained resignation.  
I will not give up on you, I will not allow you to push  
this astonishing discovery of love away._

_I lock eyes with her as she passes by again. Despite her  
emptiness those eyes are the same, those ebony pearls, still  
rebellious, still ready to fight. And I have hope._

  
THE END

My only other Star Trek fanfic is "Falling" (written a while ago, had a  
baby in the meantime!) is available to read at:  
Cheile's site - [http://www.angelfire.com/ca/cheile/ficmain.html][2]  
Kashy's site - [http://www.angelfire.com/pa/perywinkle/all.html][3]

   [1]: mailto:saladbar8@hotmail.com
   [2]: %3Cfont%20face=%22Verdana,%20Arial,%20Helvetica,%20sans-serif%22%20size=%221%22%3Ehttp://www.angelfire.com/ca/cheile/ficmain.html%3C/font%3E
   [3]: %3Cfont%20face=%22Verdana,%20Arial,%20Helvetica,%20sans-serif%22%20size=%221%22%3Ehttp://www.angelfire.com/pa/perywinkle/all.html%3C/font%3E



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